Help! I Became A Guy In A BL Novel!

Leon blinked. "Milk?" he wondered under his breath, puzzled.

Sofia's lips pressed into a tight line. "Two glasses of milk," she said coolly. There was care underneath—an old habit of taking care of her little brother, even if she wouldn't admit it.

Sofia dunked the cookie again, swirling it thoughtfully in the milk before taking a small bite.

The look she gave him over the rim of her glass was careful—like she was bracing herself to be disappointed. She didn't say anything, but Leon knew that silence better than any words: Get to the point.

He watched her chew, feeling the nervous heat climb up the back of his neck. All the grand apologies he'd practiced in his head seemed to evaporate. He grasped for anything that would sound halfway sincere and not pathetic.

He cleared his throat. "I guess…I don't even know how to begin." He rubbed the condensation from the milk glass with his thumb, trying to buy himself another moment. "Let me start with a thank you. Thank you for…for being willing to hear me out."

Sofia set her glass down with a quiet clink. Her expression barely changed. "I only agreed to listen," she said calmly. "Don't mistake that for forgiveness. I haven't decided if you deserve it."

Her voice wasn't angry, not exactly—it was worse. Disappointed. Like she'd already grieved the brother she lost, and he was just a ghost showing up late to his own funeral. That hurt, but it was fair.

He swallowed hard and nodded. "I know." The milk he'd gulped settled in his stomach like a cold stone. "I don't expect anything else."

Sofia rested her elbows on the table, folding her hands. "Then say what you came to say."

Leon took a shaky breath. His gaze dropped to the table, unable to look her in the eye. "Mother…hasn't told you or the others the reason why she declared me heir the day Father died."

He felt the air between them change. Sofia stilled, her cookie halfway to her mouth. Slowly, she set it back on the plate. "Does the reason matter?" she asked, her voice tight. "You know how she raised Catalina. How she… Broke her down to remake her into the perfect queen. Every lesson, every correction. The way she demanded perfection."

"She filled her with all that responsibility. All those dreams. And then—just like that—she stripped it away and handed it to you. You, of all people."

The words didn't even sting the way they once might have. They were true. He had spent years ignoring that truth because it was easier to pretend he deserved it. But hearing it from Sofia's mouth—he could no longer deny how deep the wound ran.

"You're right. Catalina deserved better. All of you did."

Sofia closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, the softness was gone again, replaced by the cool composure she had always been best at. "Then why?" she demanded. "What reason could justify it?"

Their father had always been a different sort of man. He was strong—no one could deny that, but it wasn't the kind of strength the bards sang about in grand epics. His strength was quieter. Steady. The kind that didn't roar but refused to bend.

In the Lion Kingdom, where the crown had passed from mother to daughter for centuries, he had made no secret of his discomfort with the way boys and men were treated. It wasn't that they were oppressed—certainly not in the way women were in patriarchal kingdoms elsewhere, but their value was only tied to their bodies.

They were physically stronger than women. So, they were best put to use in labour-intensive jobs. The creating, inventing and revolutionising was left to women.

Leon remembered being very small, sitting on the edge of his father's great chair in the study while the older man quietly signed charters and decrees that made it easier for boys to study law, or serve as officers, or inherit property in their own right.

His father never shouted about progress, never gave speeches that rallied crowds. He simply changed things, inch by inch.

A kingdom where every citizen could grow into their gifts, regardless of gender, would be stronger. More just. More whole.

And in the last days of his life, when illness had hollowed him into something pale and coughing, he made his final request of the woman he had loved for decades: Help me finish what I started.

The Queen—Leon's mother—had never been warm. She had been severe, sometimes frightening, but she had also loved her husband. Loved him enough that when he whispered that plea, she promised she would try.

That was why, when he died, she did something that scandalised the nobility and split her daughters from her in fury and disbelief: she named Leon as heir.

It was not wholly unprecedented, of course—history had a handful of male kings when there was no daughter to take the throne, and even then, after marriage, their wives took over. But never when there was a clear firstborn, a princess groomed all her life to lead.

Catalina had been that princess. Their mother had shaped her with all the harsh love of a blacksmith at an anvil—every mistake corrected, every uncertainty carved away until she gleamed. Everyone had assumed she would rule. Catalina herself had assumed it.

Until the announcement.

Until their mother stood before the assembled court and declared, voice calm and final. She knew it would give rise to scandals, and she would rather not reveal that it was her dead husband's wishes that made some target their hatred towards him.

The court had erupted. Some praised the boldness. Some cursed it as betrayal. And Catalina, who had never known a day when she was not the future of their kingdom, simply stared at their mother with a hurt so deep it seemed to hollow her out from the inside.

Leon remembered seeing that look, he couldn't remember if he felt bad for her. He knew that the past Leon fully felt that he deserved the throne.